New Delhi: Within hours of the Supreme Court dismissing the review petition in the Vodafone's tax case, government on Tuesday refunded about Rs 2,500 crore plus four per cent interest to the firm. When asked, a Vodafone spokesman said "the money has been refunded -- Rs 2500 crore plus four per cent interest". Earlier, Law Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters that the government would have to repay the money. "To...
12:17 AM, Mar 21, 2012
New Delhi: Within hours of Supreme Court dismissing the review petition in the Vodafone's tax case, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said the government will have to refund money (about Rs 2,500 crore and interest) to the firm. "No curative petition to my knowledge ... I suppose government will have to refund Vodafone money," he told reporters after a meeting of top ministers called by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday...
09:47 PM, Mar 20, 2012
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a review petition filed by the Central Government in the Vodafone tax case. The apex court ruled that there was no tax liability in Vodafone International Holdings-Hutchison Essar transaction. However, the government can raise fresh tax demand after the passage of Finance Bill 2012-13 as in a significant move that will have implications in the Vodafone and other cases involving tax liability...
05:06 PM, Mar 20, 2012
New Delhi: Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia commenting on the current rift between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress on the Budget 2012 said that nobody quite says that they are going to agree something unless they agree or until they are ready. Speaking to Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate, Ahluwalia said that we should wait for the reforms to show their results. Karan Thapar:Hello and...
07:25 PM, Mar 18, 2012
New Delhi: The government on Friday proposed retroactive changes in its tax rules, prompting speculation that Vodafone's $2.2 billion tax case could be reopened, although a senior government official denied the government was looking to raise any fresh demand on the British mobile phone giant. Still, tax professionals said the potential law change is likely to come in for challenge. "They have amended the law because the Supreme Court found...
03:38 AM, Mar 17, 2012
New Delhi: In a quick response to the government's move to amend the I-T Act retrospectively to recover Rs 11,000 crore from Vodafone despite losing the case in the Supreme Court, the UK-based telecom major on Friday said it has begun consultations with lawyers on the issue. "We are examining this proposed decision with our lawyers, but we do not believe this retrospective change in tax law should have any...
07:37 PM, Mar 16, 2012
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre and seven telecom firms including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone on a plea for cancellation of 2G spectrum beyond 2x4.5 MHz for metros and 2x4.4 MHz for other circles, allocated to the firms without additional fees. A bench of Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhyay granted them four weeks times to file their replies on the petition, which pleaded...
05:44 PM, Mar 12, 2012
New Delhi: Holding that a PIL questioning CJI SH Kapadia being part of the bench which delivered the Vodafone tax matter verdict was "highly scandalous, frivolous and irresponsible", the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the plea for quashing the judgement and imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the petitioner. "It is one of the most irresponsible petitions. You want to destroy the institution and want to make it dysfunctional,"...
01:33 PM, Mar 02, 2012
New Delhi: Tata Communications on Thursday said it is considering an acquisition bid for London-listed telecommunication giant Cable & Wireless Worldwide Plc (CWW). Vodafone Group Plc too is believed to be looking at bidding for the fibre-network operator. "... as part of on-going review of potential acquisition opportunities, TCL is evaluating a possible cash offer for CWW," Tata Communication Ltd (TCL) said in a regulatory filing. TCL said "considerations are...
10:09 PM, Mar 01, 2012
New Delhi: In an apparent fallout of the Supreme Court's order in the Vodafone case, the Income Tax department has started a review of its probe in the 2G spectrum scam which relied heavily on the premise of capital gains generated in overseas deals by telecom firms. The Department, which has till now detected Rs 1,500 crore of tax irregularities in its probe in this case, has found that telecom...
10:18 AM, Feb 26, 2012
New Delhi: The Department of Telecom (DoT) has asked telecom operators Idea Cellular and Vodafone to provide Intelligence Bureau (IB) identification of subscribers using Internet on their mobile phones. DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest. The security agency had sought details of some mobile numbers by providing the corresponding IP addresses to Vodafone but the...
12:24 PM, Feb 24, 2012
New Delhi: The Centre on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking review of its verdict holding that the Indian Income Tax Department does not have jurisdiction to levy Rs 11,000 crore as tax on the overseas deal between Vodafone International Holdings and Hutchison Group. The court had on January 20 allowed Vodafone's appeal and had quashed the Bombay High Court verdict which had upheld the decision to levy tax on...
06:49 PM, Feb 17, 2012
New Delhi: If a user watches TV on his mobile phone for 20 minutes every day for a month, he will consume only 1.2 GB. If you have a mobile phone that supports a web browser, GPRS and WiFi connectivity, you can watch more than 100 TV channels live on your mobile phone and it is not going to be a costly affair as most mobile users think it is....
05:37 PM, Feb 16, 2012
New Delhi: The Vodafone Group Friday named Analjit Singh as the non-executive chairman of its India operations. Singh, a leading industry figure in India, is the founder and chairman of Max India Ltd as well as its subsidiaries such as Max New York Life Insurance Company Ltd, Max Healthcare Institute Ltd and Max Bupa Health Insurance Company Ltd. "Analjit has been a longstanding, reliable and trustworthy partner in India," Vittorio...
03:42 PM, Feb 10, 2012
New Delhi: In what comes as another shock for the telecom industry, the government is set to recommend that older players like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea be charged for excess spectrum that they hold. CNN-IBN has accessed a draft Cabinet note that is set to recommend the same. Sources say that the draft is expected to be finalised within a week and a decision on this is likely in...
06:24 PM, Feb 08, 2012
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered two money laundering cases against former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother Kalanidhi on Wednesday in the multi-crore 2G licence scam. An illegal gratification of Rs 550 crore was reportedly accepted through Dayanidhi's brother Kalanidhi in the garb of share premium invested in M/S Sun Direct TV by Maxis Communication, owned by Malaysian tycoon T Anantha Krishnan. The case, registered under the...
10:44 AM, Feb 08, 2012
The court hearings had gone on through all of August. On September 8, 2010, the Bombay High Court was packed to the rafters with newspaper reporters of all hues. There was a battery of lawyers representing the Government of India and telecom giant Vodafone. There were two judges who had been hearing the famous Vodafone tax case: DY Chandrachud and JP Devadhar. Though Devadhar was in Nagpur that day, he...
01:18 PM, Feb 07, 2012
No one is switching off lights at 6 pm or slashing salaries and headcount by a quarter and cutting back on travel budgets. Actually, there are very few Indian firms exhibiting those typical knee-jerk reactions that one associates with tough times. Instead, when our team began interviewing CEOs of some of India's best run companies to gauge how they'd plan their strategy to tide over this year of uncertainty, we...
11:39 AM, Feb 04, 2012
As many as 122 2G licenses cancelled in 22 circles across India " in a country of 900 million subscribers, it is less than 5 per cent. ...
10:01 PM, Feb 02, 2012
New Delhi: The number of mobile phone subscribers in India rose to 893.84 million in December with Idea Cellular alone signing 2.39 million new subscribers, official data showed Monday. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the wireless user base grew 1.07 per cent with an addition of 9.47 million subscribers, from 884.37 million in November. With this, the total number of telephone subscribers, including land line holders,...
01:37 PM, Jan 31, 2012
